Free The Rip-Off by Jim Thompson Page B

he'd gone back to his office. She said there were some people in this world who had to work for a living, even if I didn't know it.
    "I've been working," I said. "I've almost finished my article."
    "Never mind," she said. "Do you want some pancakes or something? There isn't any of the stew left."
    "I'm sorry I didn't hear you call me for dinner. I would have been glad to join you."
    "Will you kindly tell me whether you want something to eat?" she yelled. "I'm worn out, and I don't feel like arguing. It's just been work, work, work from the time I got up this morning. Cooking and sewing and cleaning, and-and I even washed the car on top of everything else!"
    I said that she should never wash a car on top of anything, let alone everything. Then, I said, "Sorry, I would have washed the car. I told you I would."
    She said, Oh, sure, a lot I would do. "Just look at you! You can't even shine your shoes. You don't see my daddy going around without his shoes shined, and he works ."
    I looked at her. The spitefully glaring eyes, the shrewish thrust of her chin. And I thought, What the hell gives here, anyway? She and her papa had been increasingly nasty to me almost from the day we were married. But tonight's performance beat anything I had previously been subjected to.
    "You and your daddy," I said, "are very, very lovely people. Strange as it may seem, however, your unfailing courtesy and consideration have not made a diet of pancakes and table scraps palatable to me. So I'll go into town and get something to eat, and you and your daddy can go burp in your bibs!"
    I was heading for the door as I spoke, for Connie had a vile temper and was not above throwing things at me or striking me with them.
    I flung the door open, and-and there was a sickening thud and a pained scream from Connie, a scream that ended almost as soon as it began. I turned around, suddenly numb with fear.
    Connie lay crumpled on the floor. A deep crease, oozing slow drops of blackish blood, stretched jaggedly across her forehead.
    She had been hit by the sharp edge of the door when I threw it open. She was very still, as pale as death.
    I grabbed her up and raced out to the car with her. I placed her on the back seat, and slid under the wheel. And I sent the car roaring down the lane from the house, and into the road that ran in front of it. Or, rather, across the road. For I was going too fast to make the turn.
    The turn was sharp, one that was dangerous even at relatively low speeds. I knew it was, as did everyone else in the area. And I could never satisfactorily explain why I was traveling as fast as I was.
    I was unnerved, of course. And, of course, I had lost my head, as I habitually did when confronted with an emergency. But, still…
    Kind of strange for a man to do something when he damn well knew he shouldn't. Kind of suspicious.
    The road skirted a steep cliff. It was almost three hundred feet from the top of the cliff to the bottom. The car went over it, and down it.
    I don't know why I didn't go over with it… as Connie did.
    I couldn't explain, no more than I could explain why I was speeding when I hit the turn. Nor could I prove that I had hit Connie with the door accidentally instead of deliberately.
    I was an outsider in a clannish little community, and it was known that I constantly bickered with my wife. And I was the beneficiary of her $100,000 life insurance policy- $200,000 double indemnity.
    If Connie's father hadn't stoutly proclaimed me innocent-Connie also defending me as soon as she was able- I suspect that I would have been convicted of attempted murder.
    As I still might be… unless I myself was murdered.

14
    The night of the skeleton, of my chase through the garbage dump …
    I was kept under sedation for the rest of that night, and much of the next day and night. I had to be, so great was the damage to my nervous system. Early the following afternoon, after I had gotten some thirty-six hours of rest and treatment, Detective